Human Rights and the United Nations

"In 2002 I was gang-raped by a neighbouring clan carrying out "honour revenge". Long after the physical wounds healed, the emotional scars endure. Also enduring is the memory that when I first raised my voice, bringing my case to the authorities in the pursuit of justice, many told me it was better to keep quiet, not to bring further "shame" on my family."
Mukhtar Mai, Pakistan

Mukhtar Mai of Pakistan, who operates an organization promoting women's education in her country was in Geneva, Switzerland, attending the fifth annual Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy organized by the non-governmental organization UN Watch together with 20 other human rights groups. Canada among other nations has been supportive of this counter-UN operation.

Ms. Mai, whose website is mukhtarmai.org, was in attendance alongside dissidents from China, Cuba, Kazakhstan, North Korea, Russia, Sudan and Syria. Their appearance at such an event was obvious enough; that some of them were able to travel to an event of this nature and expect to return to their countries of origin and suffer no repercussions is something else again.

Their purpose in attending the NGO-human rights groups conference was to protest the human rights agenda prior to the arrival of the dignitaries preparing to open the 2013 UN Human Rights Council session. The issue is obvious enough; the world's most heinous human-rights abusing nations are invited to take their place on the councils whose specific purpose is to sit in judgement on others whom they purport to represent human-rights-abusing nations.

If a particular political bloc ensues, which it does when countries that have especial influence because of their connections through for example, religious affiliation such as the Arab-Muslim bloc, aided and additionally influenced by their economic clout, bringing aboard those reliant on their oil exports for energy, their political agenda can be assured to be adopted. And so it is that the State of Israel represents the only country in the world whose 'record of abuse' is always on the agenda.

And while Israel is forever the scapegoat of those who find the country's existence irritating and troublesome, the horrendous human rights crimes committed by countries like China, Pakistan, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran and others go unremarked. And these are the countries, never Israel, a democracy and a pluralist society which has enacted human rights laws its neighbours shirk, sit in judgement on Israel.

Mukhtar Mai points out that Pakistan was just elected to the UN's Human Rights Council. If any country could represent itself as a poster for an incubator of terrorism, a constant threat to its neighbours, sexist and abusive through a culture that demeans and subjugates women and children, it is Pakistan. This is the country with a recent appearance before the UNHRC for a periodic assessment of its human rights record.

In the wake of the horrendous attack against teenager Malala Yousafzai whose crime was that she aspired to attend school and achieve a decent education and wanted no less for other Pakistani girls, meriting her a death sentence because she publicly advocated on foreign media for the rights of girls to be educated, Pakistan has responded to the swell of public condemnation at home.  Malala survived her almost-deadly attack.

That 15-year-old girl demonstrated extreme bravery, the courage of her conviction. Pakistan has presented its last four years as "the most active period of legislation-making on human rights in Pakistan's 65-year history", which is fairly telling about the level of human rights prior to this period. But the enacting of legislation does not quite tell the entire story; legislation must be backed up by a firm and unequivocal intention to invoke the legislation when required.

One of those pieces of legislation is meant to protect women from violence in the home and workplace. Enforcement appears to be lacking, so this represents an utterly useless piece of legislation. Turning around a medieval culture is not easily accomplished. But with legislation backed up with the teeth of deliberate and firm enforcement much could be accomplished.

The right to education has been included in the constitution. Ms. Mai decries the fact that despite this she suffers daily struggles to ensure education is accessible to all who require and most certainly desire it, irrespective of religion, sex, geography and social-economic status in her country. She calls upon her government to finalize their oral dedication to human rights by implementing laws that will be enforced.

"The UN can help rape victims like me, and other unempowered women in Pakistan, by calling on Pakistan to implement its international undertakings to respect our universal right to human dignity and equality, and to truly guarantee access to education. Pakistan can live up to its council membership pledges and obligations by transforming good words into needed actions."

That seems a fond hope, viewed from the perspective that a murderous tyrant who has been judged before the International Criminal Court as guilty of ten counts of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in Darfur remains a welcome figure at the UN. Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir was elected vice-president of the UN's Economic and Social Council at the end of January. ECOSOC is a top UN body, regulating human rights groups, shaping the composition of key UN women's rights bodies, and adopting resolutions on subjects from Internet freedom to female genital mutilation.

This is the man who authorized a war on the Darfur region of Sudan. A relentless war that saw government helicopter gunships hovering over farming villages, bombing and strafing the desperate people below, and sending the feared Janjaweed militias after escapees. The UN itself judged that during that conflict 300,000 black Darfurians were slaughtered, two million displaced and still living in fragile refugee camps, and countless women were raped.

To add insult to injury ECOSOC President, Nestor Osorio of Columbia made it known that Sudan would be chairing the humanitarian affairs segment of the Council's work. Under these incredible circumstances, what precisely can we anticipate for the future of the United Nations and its creature committees and councils representing a world gone mad.

Stark, raving lunacy at the United Nations, in any event.